In ten years of international cricket, Smriti Mandhana has played in only four Women’s Test matches. In the next three weeks, she is scheduled to be part of two Test matches — one-off Tests against England at the DY Patil Stadium here starting from Thursday and against Australia at the Wankhede from December 23.
The last Test Smriti and the Indian women’s team played was two years back against Australia at Canara which ended in a draw.
The one-off Test against England Women starting at the DY Patil Stadium here on Thursday is also the first Women’s Test to be played in India since 2014. That Test was against South Africa at Mysore which India won by an innings and 34 runs. Mandhana scored only 8 in that match while Harmanpreet Kaur, who will be leading India in the Test starting on Thursday claimed nine wickets (5-44 and 4-41) as India recorded a comprehensive victory.
Along with Smriti, Harmanpreet Kaur was part of the Indian women’s cricket team that took the field for the last Test match played in India and thus focus will be on them when India takes the field against England in the four-day Test starting on Thursday.
The team comprises many young players who have not played any Test cricket and thus will be looking up to Smriti and Harmanpreet for guidance. The players will need to adapt a lot to playing multi-day cricket and they only play T20I or 50-over matches on the domestic circuit.
“We have got our ‘whites’ today and we are excited to play Test match cricket. We played our last Test at home in 2014, in I think Mysore against South Africa. I think we are really excited to wear whites again at home soil and go out there and represent India in whites. I think that’s a different feeling altogether in the last two years,” said Smriti Mandhana on Tuesday, two days before the start of the Test as both teams went into practice mode for the longer version of the game.
Though the players will be playing the longer version of the game after a couple of years, Mandhana said they will not try and change the players’ style of play and will rather take things as they come and adapt according to the demands of the situation.
Though most of the players, including Mandhana, will be getting into the Test match after playing a three-match T20I Series in which India lost to England 2-1, Mandhana said switching from white-ball to red-ball cricket will not be very difficult.
“I don’t think it’s very difficult if you mentally prepare yourself. I don’t think it’s a big change because, you know, this is about applying yourself. The batting is not like I’m going to change a lot of technique or, you know, I’m going to just change a lot of things. It’s just about that mental shift of patience more than anything that, you know, you have to apply yourself and play, play to the demand of that phase. I think that will be really crucial because I don’t see anyone in the team changing their batting techniques or bowling techniques. That takes a lot of time. So definitely these two days are going to be crucial for us,” said Mandhana.
In four Tests, Mandhana has scored 325 runs at an average of 46.42, hitting a century and two fifties.
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